DALLAS – After three straight televised fights, Jim Miller was surprisingly demoted to the preliminary card for Saturday’s UFC 103 event. But in a TKO win over UFC newcomer Steve Lopez, he proved why he belongs back on a main card.

Miller dominated in an impressive first round and continued the onslaught into the second. He was slowed only when Lopez suffered a dislocated shoulder and was forced to wave off the fight.

Despite the confusing finish, it was another solid victory for Miller, who headlined UFC 103’s preliminary card at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

Miller, looking to build off an impressive unanimous-decision victory over “The Ultimate Fighter 6″ winner Mac Danzig at July’s UFC 100 event, struck early with crisp striking. In fact, once he landed a powerful kick to his opponent’s legs in the opening round, he knew the fight had quickly moved into his favor.

“I hit him with [that] good low kick, and I knew I hurt him,” Miller said. “I felt the momentum go my way after that.”

However, things came to a confusing end less than a minute into the second round. After standing and trading blows, Lopez appeared to throw a rather ordinary left jab. But whether it was the position of his body or the matter in which the shot landed, Lopez immediately knew something was wrong. The octagon rookie back-peddled, attempted to move his left arm, grimaced, and immediately wave his right arm to surrender.

A replay shown on the arena’s videoboards showed the damage; Lopez knocked his arm out of its socket, and it wasn’t going back in. The referee awarded Miller the TKO victory at the 0:48 mark of the round.

Miller admits he was disappointed by the finish.

“He’s a tough kid,” he said. “(But) I’m very unsatisfied. That’s not how I want to get the win. I want a knockout, a submission or the ref to pull me of a fighter. But not like that.”

A UFC official informed MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) after the fight that Lopez’s shoulder had, in fact, dislocated. However, doctors were able to pop it back into socket once he made it backstage.

With the victory, Miller improves his career mark to 15-2, which includes an impressive 4-1 record in the UFC’s competitive 155-pound division. Lopez drops to 12-2 overall and 0-1 in the UFC.

A lightweight scrap between UFC newcomers Nik Lentz and Rafaello Oliveira
was the first of a number of closely contested bouts on the night’s preliminary card.

Lentz, a veteran of the Minnesota fight scene who got his break in the UFC as a replacement for injured Dan Lauzon, had his hands full in the first round when Oliveira
negated a variety of submission attempts.

“He’s slippery on the ground,” Lentz later said.

However, as his opponent seemed to slow in the second frame, Lentz continued the aggression and closed out the round with a kick to the body that did damage. Lentz’s offense continued in the third as the former University of Minnesota wrestler mixed in submission attempts with the strikes to impress the judges.

By taking control of the later rounds, Lentz earned the unanimous-decision victory with scores of 29-28, 29-28 and 30-27.

That UFC-debut victory, which was Lentz’s seventh straight overall, pushes his record to 17-3. Oliveira
drops to 9-2.

The night’s first crowd-pleaser came courtesy of Brian Foster and Rick Story, who kept a frantic pace throughout the first round of their lightweight bout. Although not the most technical of displays, the two fighters stood in the pocket and threw without caution for the opening half of the round.

Despite suffering an apparent broken nose that produced a steady flow of blood, Story took control of the stand-up and then continued the domination on the mat midway through the frame. Foster survived to push the fight into a second round, but Story again took control, forced a takedown and then locked in a deep arm-triangle choke. Foster briefly fought off the attempt, but unable to escape, he ultimately tapped out 69 seconds into the round.

The victory was Story’s first in the UFC and moved his record to 1-1 in the organization, 8-3 overall. Foster falls to 12-4 with his UFC-debut loss.

In light-heavyweight action, neither Eliot Marshall nor Jason Brilz did much to stand out in the judges’ eyes; the slow-paced bout, which often stalled while the fighters were in the clinch, was perhaps a little too evenly matched and proved difficult to score.

All three rounds could have gone either way, which was more than evident with the final decision. Marshall negated most of his opponent’s wrestling skills and took the split-decision win via scores of 30-28, 27-30, 30-27.

“I wanted to get more power behind my punches,” Marshall said. “I was confident in my ground game going in, but I didn’t want to be on the bottom.”

Although not the flashiest win, the victory nonetheless moves Marshall to 8-2 and a perfect 3-0 in the UFC. Brilz, who entered UFC 103 with a 13-fight undefeated streak that stretched more than seven years, drops to 17-2-1 (2-1 in the UFC).

In other action, while not exactly a crowd-pleasing performance, Vladimir Matyushenko‘s return to the UFC was a victorious one as he picked up his eighth win in nine fights and topped UFC newcomer Igor Pokrajac via unanimous decision.

The two 205-pounders both looked to counter-strike through the three-round affair, and the stalemate often resulted in extended lulls in action. Matyushenko, though, nearly ended the fight in the second round after a flurry of one-two combinations set up a takedown and deep keylock that Pokrajac barely escaped.

Ultimately, Matyushenko settled for the unanimous-decision victory (30-27, 20-27, 30-27), which moves his record to 24-4 (4-2 UFC). Pokrajac, making his UFC and American debut, falls to 21-6 with his first loss in nine fights.

In the night’s opening bout, lightweights Rob Emerson and Rafael dos Anjos kept a solid pace through their three-rounder, thanks largely to Emerson’s early success with a quite effective sprawl that kept the fight standing. His Brazilian opponent, though, used a series of brutal inside leg kicks to slow Emerson and work his ground game in the later rounds.

Although the first two rounds were close, all three judges ultimately scored them and the final round for dos Anjos for the unanimous decision victory (30-27, 30-27, 30-27).

With the win, dos Anjos, who suffered losses to Jeremy Stephens and Tyson Griffin in his first two UFC fights, moves to 12-4 (1-2 in the UFC). Meanwhile, Emerson, whose late career resurgence suffered another setback, drops to 8-8 (2-2 in the UFC) with back-to-back losses for the first time in nearly five years.

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